The Angel of Olden Academy ✓

chapter ten

If anyone's interested in where the inspiration for this story came from ... it's from this thing on the sidewalk. I pass it on my way home every day and only just got around to taking a picture (which sums up how I deal with most things in life).

Anyway, only three chapters left! Thank you thank you thank you to everyone reading, voting, and commenting! You know who you are, aha. <3

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Every Impotentia patient was excused from fourth-quarter grades and final exams. It was late April now, stretching quickly into May, and the air smelled like spring. Adam laughed at me when I told him that back home in Maryland, we'd have sunshine and warmth every day by now. Then he kissed me and said, "Did I ever tell you that your accent is hot?" And I went very, very red, and he laughed again and went back to his book.

Hot. He'd called me hot. I'd been afraid that he couldn't even see me that way, after so many days of helping me hobble to the bathroom, watching me grow thin and sick and weak. The relief was staggering.

One night, Adam, Sander, Viola, Eesha, Kyle, and I were all crowded together into a private study room—Eesha and Kyle were revising for their magical creatures exam; Sander and Viola were pretending to work but mostly just giggling with each other; and Adam was curled up in the big armchair with me, reading from a textbook on ancient runes while I played with his hair.

We were an odd group. Odd, but good. I liked these people, and trusted them, and felt like a part of something when I was with them—like we were some secret club, the kind you read about in books. We laughed so easily together, the six of us. The feeling of inclusion, of acceptance, wasn't something I'd ever known before.

Sometime around eight, Adam fell asleep against my shoulder, and I hushed Sander and Viola from their laughter. Viola gave me a smug, I-told-you-so look. I rolled my eyes, looking down at the boy in my arms. He slept like a fucking princess—lips slightly parted, chest rising and falling gently, fingers loosely curled around my shirt. It terrified me, how much I felt for him.

"Hey, who wants to get us food from the Hall?" Kyle asked.

"We're studying," Sander said.

"We're actually studying," Eesha returned.

"I'll go," said a sleepy voice at my shoulder.

"Come on," I argued. "Sander, you do it."

But Adam was already climbing off of me.

I tried to follow. "I'll go with you."

He pressed me gently back into the chair. "You worry too much," he told me, reaching for his jumper.

I frowned at him. "It's dark out."

"It's early. There are plenty of students around." He kissed my cheek and ruffled my hair. "I'll be fine."

Then he was gone.

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He should have been back in fifteen minutes. Twenty, at the most. It had been nearly thirty-five.

"I'm going after him," I said.

"I'm sure he's fine," Sander assured me. "You know how crowded the Hall gets on Friday nights."

I grumbled a reply and headed out the door.

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Adam wasn't in the Hall, or anywhere between the study room and there, and no one claimed to have seen him. I went to his room and banged on the door. Nothing. I searched every nearby bathroom, every nook and cranny. I was half-running at this point, frantic. I checked my room, and nearly left when I found it empty—and then a folded piece of paper on my bed caught my eye.